The present invention relates to the field of chewing gum base and chewing gum made therewith, and particularly to synthetic chewing gum base.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,889,727, assigned to the assignee of the present application, describes an enhancement to a synthetic chewing gum base which involves the addition of a minor amount of cocoa powder to the base or to the chewing gum in which the base is used.
The preferred level of the cocoa powder in the synthetic chewing gum base was stated to be between about 0.3 and 2.4 percent by weight of the gum base. At this minor level, the cocoa powder should not contribute a chocolate flavor to the gum base. It was reported, nevertheless, that the presence of this low level of cocoa powder contributed to the overall flavor of the synthetic gum base in such a way as to make the synthetic gum base taste more like a natural gum base.
The enhancement of the flavor of a synthetic chewing gum base to taste more like that of a natural gum base provides the advantage in that it allows a chewing gum manufacturer to convert from a natural base to a synthetic gum base without significant alteration of the flavor profile of the chewing gum.
Unfortunately, the addition of cocoa powder to gum base at the plant scale posed a certain problem. Specifically, when gum base is made it is typically screened through a nylon 80 mesh screen (180 microns) to reduce impurities in accordance with Good Manufacturing Practice. It was found that when the cocoa powder was added directly to the gum base during manufacturing, it blocked the purifying screen. This was surprising in light of the fact that the specification for the cocoa powder being used was for a particle size of 99.5% through a 200 mesh screen (74 microns). In other words, the particles of cocoa powder should have passed through the 80 mesh screen.